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THE MAESTRO'S VOICE BY ROLAND VERNON (Black Swan £7.99)

Murder,
suspense, betrayal and long-lost friendship: Roland Vernon's second novel
promises intrigue on an operatic scale, which seems appropriate given that it
revolves around a much-loved and hugely admired tenor, Rocco Campobello - a
global superstar of his day.

It's 1926 and Campobello, having collapsed
on stage in New York, is fighting for his life. He wakes a changed, rather
haunted man who - to the surprise of both his socialite wife and devoted
assistant - decides to return to his home town of Naples, after years of
absence, to right past wrongs.

In doing so, Campobello knows that he will
stir up old grievances among his long-time associates in the local Mafia, as
well as exacerbating the growing tension between them and the newer source of
authority in the city: the preening, power-hungry blackshirts.

The stage
is set for nothing less than a battle for the singer's soul. Drawing on the
author's own experience as a tenor, The Maestro's Voice is an exciting and
accomplished page-turner; but it's the vivid evocation of the teeming slums,
ornate churches and claustrophobic network of tunnels and catacombs that lie
beneath Naples that give it an added dimension.

One to pack in your hand
luggage on your next holiday.

THE RUNNING SKY BY TIM DEE (Vintage £8.99)

FOR birdwatcher Tim Dee, the sky is never empty. Looking up has become
second nature: 'I have lived my life under birds and I cannot remember a single
birdless day.' Based on a year's birdwatching, but drawing from a lifetime of
observation, Dee brings home the everyday magic of birds, be it watching storm
petrels wheel overhead in the Shetland Isles or hearing nightjars sing in
Norfolk. Appealingly, however, he admits he is no hardcore twitcher: 'I
misidentify birds and get bored, and eat my packed lunch at half past ten in the
morning'.

Dee reserves his greatest praise for nature writers who combine
the factual with the poetic - so it's unsurprising that he himself seems to have
an apt poetic quote or reference for every occasion.

Often, though, these
feel shoe-horned in unnecessarily since Dee's own writing is lyrical enough to
stand on its own merits.

A tiny wren held in his hands feels like 'an
energetic walnut', while snow buntings coming into land look 'like tumbling
black and white lacy handkerchiefs, on to seasmoothed boulders of grey-black
pumice'.

THE FORTUNES OF GRACE HAMMER BY SARA STOCKBRIDGE (Vintage £7.99)

Actress and model Sara Stockbridge remains best known as the erstwhile
muse of Vivienne Westwood - all bleached-blonde pin-curls, red lipstick and
spiky attitude.

Her debut novel stars the eponymous Grace Hammer, a
feisty, blonde-haired, green-eyed jewel thief with an unfortunate weakness for a
handsome charmer.

Grace has carved out a surprisingly decent life for
herself and her brood of four children among the flotsam of 19th-century
London's East End - a world of cut-throats, opium addicts and ladies of easy
virtue.

But a ruby necklace from her past threatens to overturn Grace's
erratically ordered existence when its former owner, the brutish Horatio Blunt,
returns to wreak his vengeance on the woman who stole it from
him.

Stockbridge aims high with her cast of Dickensian grotesques, and
although she fails to create any character as memorable as those of Dickens
himself, her novel has an undeniable verve and brash energy.

This is
Victoriana painted in Glorious Technicolor, but none the worse for that.